Gensokyo Railway Series 1 (Four Railway Engines)
by Pergold
Summary: Prominent figures met to discuss what some have discovered in a place far from Gensokyo, Mechanical youkai. So the kappas proposed to build a railway, worked by these 'mechanical youkai'. These are the stories of those involved.
1. Prologue

The room was fulled of youkai, all of whom were seated by a table. The middle of the table was occupied by a map. Landmarks were written down and each was linked by a line with crosses.

"Here will be the main terminus." said a kappa in a green hat.

"How is this going to help my shrine?" said a human in red clothing.

"Yes Reimu, your shrine. Well, you and Sanae will benefit from both ticket sales and increased patronage to your respective shrines. As such the mainline will end at both shrines." The kappa said, replying to the question.

"Is this going to work?" asked a skeptical tengu.

"Yes. If some youkai in the oustide world can run a railway, so can we." the kappa answered back, she was referring to the North Western Railway and its controller.

"How can you produce these mechanical youkai? Like the ones on that island outside of Gensokyo?" asked a youkai with blonde hair.

"Yukari, you should know. Your the one that toured the railway, broke into their works and gave the information we needed."

"Ah, right." said the blonde youkai.

"We have reserved engineered their ways, and we will have the first batch of locomotives ready by opening day." The kappa said.

"We only have the plans to engines indigenous to Japan. So they'll be familiar to the humans, you Yukari, would be gapped in." She continued.

The meeting went on for at least another hour and a half, discussing the railway's construction and ownership. A local vampire was to be the controller and ownership would be that the kappa community would collectively own 53% whilst the vampire controller would own 37% and 10% would go to the blonde youkai. But no one ever brought up the ethics of these mechanical youkai, they figured if the Hatts could do this, they can.


	2. Ichihiro and Hiroto

Ichihiro was a JGR Class 3900, he had six small wheels, a large brass dome, and extended side tanks. He worked as a station pilot for the big station in the Human Village. He moved coaches and trucks to wherever they were needed. He liked teasing Hiroto, he was a JNR Class C51. Hiroto had a livery of red with white lining, this signified his role as the express engine that pulled the express trains to the shrines at both ends of the mainline.

Icihiro would pull right beside Hiroto whilst he was resting and whistle loudly, saying "Get up you lazy noroma!".

"Ugh! Kono yarou." Hiroto would say back at Icihiro.

One day he had had enough of Ichihiro's little antics, after the tank engine had made his daily prank on him. He formulated a plot with his driver, he explained to him what he'll do.

As Ichihiro shunted some coaches for the trip to the Hakurei shrine, Hiroto quickly backed onto the coaches.

"Get in quickly please." Hiroto said.

The passengers obeyed and Hiroto's driver coupled him to the train. The guard blew his whistle and Hiroto pulled out of the station. But Ichihiro's driver didn't see the locomotive ahead and didn't uncouple Ichihiro fast enough. It became too late as Ichihiro was pulled out with the rest of the train. Hiroto was going as quickly as he could, he didn't mind the extra weight coming from Icihiro.

"Stop!" Yelled Icihiro, but to no avail.

Ichihiro felt his wheels ache from the speed he was going.

"Toriketitoroto, Toriketitoro." chortled Hiroto.

It wasn't long before, before both locomotives had gotten to the station close to the Hakurei shrine.

Ichihiro was tired, his wheels hurt and he pulled onto a siding and took on some water.

"That ought to teach you not to tease me, little Ichihiro." said Hiroto.

Hiroto pulled away before the tank engine could reply. Ichihiro left back to the big station, he went sadly away.


	3. Shiro's Day Out

Shiro, a JGR Class 5100. Was idle in the shed. The Scarlet Controller picked the bigger engines as they were more powerful than he was. The other two tender locomotives were Hiroto, a 4-6-2, and Kenta, who had a 2-8-0 arrangement, but Shiro was only a 4-4-0. But orders came for Shiro that day.

"Your luck today Shiro, your to pull a goods trains to the Human Village and you get to pull a passenger train to the Moriya shrine!" His driver said.

Shiro was excited and set out to do his jobs. He pulled the goods from the depot for which the kappas took their manufactured goods and stored them for further transport. He pulled the train from the yard and set out for the Human Village terminus. When he got there, he asked Ichihiro if his coaches were ready.

"Good morning Ichihiro!" Shiro called out.

"Is my train ready?"

"I just put the coaches on Platform two. The ones on platform one are for Hiroto." Ichihiro replied.

Shiro back down onto the coached and set out for the journey, that night he took the berth between the two larger engines.

"I get to go out again tomorrow!" He said.

The other engines groaned, but Shiro was excited for the next day's work.

The next day, Shiro was shunting some cars for his next trains when he saw Hiroto pulling a load of freight.

"Dirty trucks, dirty cargo! I'd rather pull some nice coaches. The shame of it all!" grumbled Hiroto.

As Shiro was about to pull his train, the yardmaster ran to his driver. After a short conversation, the yardmaster went away.

"Alright Shiro." His driver started talking to him.

"Hiroto's stalled on the Youkai Mountain incline."

Part of the line went over a big hill at the bottom of Youkai Mountain, Hiroto had stuck there and Shiro was sent to push him up.

By the time Shiro had gotten to Hiroto, Hiroto's driver was saying how bad of an engine he was.

"Are you ready?" Asked Shiro.

"Yes." said Hiroto, reluctantly.

Shiro started to push Hiroto up the hill.

"Get moving you...Get moving you." puffed Shiro, pushing the heavy train uphill.

"I can't, I can't!" said Hiroto.

"Oh come on! Put some more effort into it." Shiro said, lashing out at Hiroto's sudden laziness.

Hiroto did put some more effort in moving his train and the two were moving at a decent pace up the hill. At the summit, Hiroto's speed increased as he went down the hill and Shiro saw that the train went farther and farther away from him. Hiroto didn't even thank him, as he sped away from the 4-4-0. Shiro returned to the yard to pick up his waiting train. His driver smiled at him.

"For your work today, I ought to give you a new coat of paint." He said promisingly.


	4. Kenta's Sneeze

Kenta was a JNR Class 9600, he usually pulls the heavy freight trains but sometimes pull passengers too. Today, he was pulling a return train from the Moriya shrine. A bridge passes over the line, some fairies were looking down on the oncoming train, Kenta whistled at them.

"Hello!" He said.

SMASH! CRASH! Instead of waving or saying hi back to him, they thought it was fun to throw chunks of ice instead. Kenta's driver was hit on the head and the coaches's windows were broken.

"They've broken the glass! They've broken the glass!" some of the passengers said.

"Call the shrine maiden!" said one passenger in particular.

"No need." said the firewoman.

"I have a plan."

"Really? I'd like to know your plan." said the hurt driver.

"Alright. Here's our plan, some of you are regulars to this shrine, yes?"

Some of the passengers nodded, some said "Hai.".

"Great!" said the fireman.

He explained his plan to the passengers and to wait for the next day.

That next day had arrived and Kenta was loading up on some regular shrine goers. The fireman reminded them of the plan.

"Alright, I didn't clean out Kenta's smokebox last night and there's plenty of ash." said the firewoman.

"Are you alright there Yujin?"

Kenta was too stuffed up to reply. Kenta's firewoman had planned to load as much ash and soot inside Kenta's smokebox. Air gets drawn in and out from the funnel and sometimes the collected ash would get blown out. Kenta's firewoman was relying on this.

Kenta was quickly approaching the bridge and sure enough there was the fairies, ready with their chunks of ice.

"Okay, When I say go, sneeze. Alright...one...two...ready...go!"

"ACHOO!" yelled Kenta.

A large plume of ash blew into the air up above the bridge and all over the fairies.

"Hah. That'll show them. The poor baka." said the firewoman.

When Kenta got to the station, the passengers that were around when Kenta's train got pelted with ice, cheered at the engine's victory. His firewoman patted him on the boiler.

"Job well done, If I'd seen it." She said.

Even though the Scarlet Controller told him that its not okay to do 'that' to the other youkai, the fairies never bothered him again.


	5. Hiroto and the Spell Card

A minor youkai incident was happening, whilst it wasn't anything important. It did affect train scheduling as the increase of youkai activity had to be accounted for. This greatly affected passenger trains as they were delayed constantly, this annoyed Hiroto.

"Silly fairies, silly oni, silly lunarians. Silly youkai in general!" He'd say begrudgingly.

His expresses were getting later and later. Sometimes youkai and humans would challenge each other with things called spell cards and danmaku. Hiroto hated it when this happened.

"Damn duels make me late." He would say.

Hiroto was making a return train from the Hakurei shrine when he had to be flagged down by a kappa from a nearby signal box.

"Another fight?" asked the driver.

"Yeah, some careless magician knocked out the signal post up ahead." said the kappa.

"Hmph!" said Hiroto.

All for the rest week, even when the incident stopped and things went back to normal, the signal was still out.

One day, when Hiroto pulled into the station by the Hakurei shrine. The resident miko was happily counting ticket sales.

"Excuse me miss." asked Hiroto.

"What?" said the miko.

"What's so important about spell cards, all they do is make me late!" Hiroto continued.

"What's so important?!" the miko said, this seemed to have triggered her.

"They make sure humans have a fair fight with the other more powerful youkai. Its to give other a chance at winning and even for survival." explained the miko.

"Its thanks to your controller that we have special rules for them."

"I still hate them." Hiroto said conceitedly.

"Hate them all you want you hunk of metal, but they are important, not for you, but for us!" the miko was obviously beginning to get fed up with Hiroto.

Hiroto left the station and was making his way to the still damaged signal, when he spotted something beautiful. The sky was alight with colors and patterns. Hiroto marveled at it and saw two youkai dueling in the sky. He was so distracted, he missed the kappa flagging him down.

"Wait! Stop!" Screamed the kappa, but was no good.

Hiroto thundered along, his driver applied the brakes, but it was too late.

Kenta was coming by with a small goods train and Hiroto smashed into one of the trucks. Both engines stopped.

No one was hurt, but most of the trains heading to both of the shrines were affected badly for the rest of the day.

The miko from the station and the Scarlet Controller arrived to survey the damage. Shiro brought the breakdown crane and several kappa were writing down things on notepads.

"You should have kept a better lookout!" scolded the Scarlet Controller.

"I'm sorry sir." Hiroto felt ashamed.

The miko walked by, Hiroto asked her a question.

"What were those pretty patterns and colors?"

The miko laughed, "Those were spell cards! You silly great...thing.".

The Scarlet Controller and the miko smiled at each other, then they went off on their ways.

"So that's what they are..." said Hiroto, trailing off.


	6. Epilogue

Two youkai and a miko were in a office. The blonde youkai spoke first.

"These few months have been interesting." she said.

"I know, Remillia's said that its fun bossing the engines around and telling them off." the kappa said.

"I don't how I feel about these big smoky things." the miko said in earnest.

"But they bring you more donations, plus you finally afford things like food and repairs from the ticket sales you collect." the kappa pointed out.

"The Bunbunmaru News talked poorly of the railway, dirty fairies and distracted engines." said the blonde youkai.

"Speaking of that, how are you going to keep the railway in order when a engine become...incapacitated?" the miko said.

"I'm working on a new engine, but he won't be ready for a while" the kappa then unrolled a schematic of the new locomotive.

The three women discussed the future of the railway. They all agreed that the railway was successful. The Scarlet Controller was at home having some tea and some type B. The other miko was tending to her shrine, wondering why her patronage had plateaued when the railway connection to her shrine was made.


End file.
